


Those Who Don't Sleep

by Kalaiscope



Series: Various Leif Works [2]
Category: Road to Folkvangr, Tales from Cloverreach/The Grimalkin Oath
Genre: M/M, and some weird cat smooching, lots of guilt-ridden leif, youngsters with bad dreams and worse memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 09:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1340731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalaiscope/pseuds/Kalaiscope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He is a failure. He feels it. That is why he can never face them again. Because the damage was done, and it's still his fault that he didn't even try to do something.</i>
</p><p> </p><p><i>Because he was afraid. A coward. Worthless.</i><br/> </p><p>
  <i>In love.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Don't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Leif has never been one for copious introspection, but he's starting to acquire the taste for it. These are mostly little drabbles that I wrote on a streak of inspiration, and don't mean much in the larger view of things. They're like little snapshots, I guess. Windows into what's going through Leif's head.

He's spent an inordinate amount of time actively NOT thinking about things, ignoring and pretending he could forget, so it stands to reason that he'd have a lot to catch up on. Unfortunately, these days, it seems to Leif that he had almost too MUCH time to think. Like the universe is giving him a break for the moment, just so he can mull around about things that don't matter. Or things that matter, but he'd rather didn't matter so much.

Maybe it's just because he doesn't sleep much anymore.

A nap here and there during the day, a pawful of hours before sunrise spent holed up in a tree or a ditch, that's always been his style. But lately, and he's not sure when it started, the only sleep he gets is a deep and dreamless slumber, until something creaks and he wakes up with his heart pounding. 

Nothing. No danger. Just a dark room and a faint hint of moonlight filtered through branches and warped glass panes.

He curls back against Bragi, touching whatever he can without hurting or waking the tom. Bragi has nightmares. He can tell by the way he shifts in his sleep, breathes unevenly, mumbles incoherent sounds to himself and scrunches his face in distress. There's never anything Leif can do to help. Waking him would just panic him, he knows from his own experience, and if he lays there long enough, sometimes they fade out on their own. Like the demons that haunt him in his slumber do so only halfheartedly. 'Close enough,' they say, 'that'll do', and wander off to creep through the minds of other less fortunate slumbering cats. Which should be a good thing, but isn't really, because they're still there and they still hurt to watch.

All Leif can do is rest his head back down and watch the shadows flicker across his friend's face. The moonlight doesn't reach this far into the room. He'll lay his paw across where Bragi's is gripping the blanket too hard, and hope that maybe something of his gesture will get through, will help.

He still can't sleep though. So he just lays there, and after a while, the boredom starts to wear on him. He starts to think. It's the only time he ever really lets himself do so. It comes with a certain amount of guilt attached, and... Well, actually, it's almost all guilty thoughts. He doesn't like to let Bragi see him cry more than absolutely necessary. 

That's the first thought. The engine for this train of thought. (Steam engines, coal burning, crashing, choking smog, coughing, death- No. That train stops there. No more of those memories. Please...) He remembers that he has let Bragi see him cry. The same way his great warm sleeping giant here cried on his shoulder. He saw Kithaya cry as well. He kissed them both... Kit was the one who kissed him though, on the lips, if that counted more. They were different. Very different. But not so different, maybe. They both hurt his chest with guilt and loss, and then both tickled his face with tears. They both made him want to run far away. Out of Gweillan. Into sleep. 

He hasn't seen Snow cry. Has he cried since Leif left? What are they doing to him, and does it make him weep? It makes Leif want to break in, pull him out, kiss his tears and tell him it will all be okay. Be the hero. Not the one who ran away. 

Snow probably hates him though. Snow? Haven? No, Haven is not his friend. Haven is a prince with a divine mission, a purpose. Bravery. Companions to fight by his side. Snow was funny, and he liked pretty girls and ale and party games like darts, even though he had to be dragged into them sometimes. He was Leif's friend. The one he promised not to question when he tended to his wounds. 

His wounds...

Now Leif is shaking again, just a little bit. Fighting back the shame that stings his eyes and makes his nose itch with repressed tears. He could have done something, anything, he should have- have stayed, have protected, all of them, all the ones still alive... Kept them alive.

He is a failure. He feels it. That is why he can never face Snow again, or Haven, even if he comes back whole. Because the damage was done, and it's still his fault that he didn't even try to do something... Because he was afraid. A coward. Worthless.

In love.

It's a tragic love, and a hopeless one. He knows it. He has always known it, on some level. And though he may not be sure of 'love at first sight's existence anymore, he thinks that maybe he might have experienced it, on some level.

 

\- - -

 

Bragi often wakes from nightmares. Even the comfort of another, trusted cat pressed against him through the night cannot chase away the terrors. Leif rarely sleeps with him though, for all that they lie together, and he always knows when his friend (if their relationship can even fit within that term) has suffered night terrors. 

He doesn't know what they're about. Bragi will never say. But he's told stories from the gaps between when Leif was gone, in broken and halting anecdotes, and Leif knows enough to guess at what images he sees in his mind. 

That's not the thing that really gets to him though. 

What truly shakes him is the fear, the undiluted terror in the tom's eyes. The haunted, frantic look of someone on the edge of breaking down. He never speaks, not at first anyway, just sits up and looks around anxiously until his gaze fixes on Leif. Leif, who doesn't understand, but tries all the same to give his support, to help in any way he can. 

He takes Bragi's paw, twice or three times maybe if he flinches away, and speak-sings soothing words in lilting tones. Tells him that he's here, they're safe, they're alone and bolted in away from raiders or kings or vagabonds. (Except Leif is a vagabond himself, however much he hates to use the term now. It's always been his identity, what he thought of himself as, but now he's not sure it's such a good thing.)

Some nights the soothing words help, and Bragi drifts off again with his head cradled in the lap of his much smaller companion, gripping his paw hard as if he's afraid Leif will desert him. (He never would.) Some nights his grip is so tight when he holds Leif to his chest that the wanderer can hardly breathe. As if he's afraid he'll fall apart if no one holds him together. It's a little uncomfortable, but Leif tries not to mind. He'd do anything to keep his friend happy and safe.

But some nights that's not enough. Some nights Bragi sits and shakes and looks around with the eyes of a cat hunted, and no words can calm his tremors. Some nights, rough nights, it takes Leif crawling helpless into his lap to bring him back to earth, takes the wander's thin arms tight around his neck to stop the trembling. 

And some rare nights, none of it helps.

It doesn't help tonight.

Leif sits with his legs to the side, pressed as close to his comrade as he can get, gripping his paws and looking up into his dark eyes. Unwaveringly, Bragi stares back, stares THROUGH him, into some world of horror that won't let him go. It pains Leif to see him like this, so distant, so clearly suffering, unable to voice what he needs. As if he even knows what he needs. 

He tries calling him by name, a soft mantra. "Bragi, Bragi, wake up, LOOK at me." He's crawling into the much wider lap and pushing gentle paws into the tom's chest. His movements are followed by a dilated glass-green gaze that still don't seem to recognize anything. Feeling a little desperate, he digs in a tighter grip on the fur beneath his paws, sitting up to match Bragi's height. "Listen," he whispers again, a hint of panic lacing the words. "Bragi, listen to me." And he knows he's been heard because large, shaking paws come up to rest on his waist. The eyes looking at him blink rapidly, terror almost obscuring the color entirely. Leif leans forward just a bit, bumping their noses together and shifting his arms to clasp behind Bragi's neck. 

"You're okay. We're okay. We're safe. You're safe here, I promise." The words are a tumbling waterfall of meaningless reassurences, spoken just for the sake of having a voice to fight the silence, but they seem to be helping... At least, they're bringing life back into Bragi's movements. His fear is nearly palpable now, vibrating through the air and falling off his body in waves. Sensing the change, Leif clings tighter, giving up his entire being to keep the waking nightmares at bay. A hint of claws dig into his skin as the hulking cat lets out a half-whine, quickly shushed. "It's alright, it's alright Bragi." There's a momentary pause, and then, "Jon. It's alright. You're safe."

The reaction to that is much more pronounced. Bragi presses in, tightening his arms around Leif. "My name," he whispers, and his voice is ragged. "Say it again?" It's not a command, but a halting request, and Leif is more than happy to oblige.

He holds their faces closer still, pressing the comforting heat of a living body into the cold places where the tom still shrinks away, inexpertly filling in the cracks with his own being. "Jon. Jon, Jon." The words are equally quiet and equally impassioned, uttered with a voice that cracks slightly at the end. They wind together, elbows poking into ribs and knees hard on femur bones, but they hardly notice. Bragi is shaking like a birch in a gale, and Leif is doing everything in his power to hold him down against the winds. Chanting his name so that it becomes a meaningless mantra, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. Anything to keep him from being blown away, to tie him down and turn his mind away from the nightmares. 

They end up tangled in the ratty blankets, twined together like bittersweet vines (an appropriate name, if nothing else). Leif feels the strained tension of the snowshoe's muscles, feels tiny against the wide chest, knows he could be snapped like a twig if the big cat chose to let his fear out in a physical strike. It's terrifying, but it only makes him want to work harder at taming that beast. He trusts Bragi, utterly and wholeheartedly. There is no part of him that believes his friend would ever willingly hurt him. So he rests his faith in that, and he kisses Bragi like they might both just fall apart if he stops.

Who knows. They might.


End file.
